Food choins
Food webs
A food chain shows how the energy Many animals eat more than one t'?e
of food. This means that they are
stored in one organism is passed to in more than one food chain.loining
a number of food chains together
another' Each organisrn depends produces a foodweb. Note that some animals,
r".h;in. *.g"rri -".,
on the one before' All food chains actually be in more than one level, depending
on which .rruir, |o.,'ro^it?*
start with a producer, such as algae. to the top. A food web also has decompose."l
l..o-posers are
The producer absorbs its energy organisms, such as bacteria, worms urri
forrgi, that break down dead
from the Sun and provides the
animals and plants. The nutrients in the deld animals and plants are
nutrients and energy that other
recycled back into the food web.
animals need. Herbivores that eat
the plants, such as the green
/
turbin snail, are called first-order
rtt
consumers. Carnivores that eat
.1 .{
first-order consumers. such as the
,'? "n'
dog whelk, u." knorir;r
order consumers. The seagull is a
i
third-order consumer because it
{
eats the second-order consumer. ;
A food
fn^'I chain
*
A
^-- l-^
be -.^--^^^--^-r
represented t
^L-i- can
;
by a simple diagram.
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! -,r"
i6
r..:"#:
.-dr:
iF
Third-order
consumer:
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s:.t.'
Ur"/)
t:/f
x,
Energy
:,
!
EF
u,'
ii
6,
:
1
:
!
t
!
j
j
j
Second-
J
,t
order
consumer:
'1
1
dog whelk
!!
i!
Energy
a
:
1
,orrrr^rr,
i
i
I
i
t'''
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Seaweed
and
Producer-:
seaweed
lecaying material
148
Science f,live for VELS Level
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Decomposers
algu